


undid

by doozerdoodles



Series: undid: undoes: undone [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst with a Happy Ending, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-07 02:57:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4246845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doozerdoodles/pseuds/doozerdoodles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the final battle with Corypheus, the Inquisitor and her inner circle must deal with the loss of one of their own. </p>
<p>Spoilers for this chapter in the tags, admittedly, but I'll leave this cryptic all the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The End

“Enough.”

A dark form moved in Dorian’s vision, indistinguishable until gauntleted hands were clamped on Doran’s wrists and Blackwall’s fierce, melancholy eyes bore into his own. “You’ll shred yourself.”

Dorian attempted to remain stony rather than yield that Blackwall had a point. The surge of mana that had filled Dorian to the brim, overflowing and spilling out of him the first frenzied hour of his search, had long since been depleted, along with his lyrium potions. Dorian’s hands were grey with dirt and debris, and red with his own blood. He wasn’t the only one looking, but it felt like he might as well have been.

“Then help,” Dorian ground out, “because I’m not leaving him here.”

Blackwall seemed to weigh something carefully in his mind before nodding, and releasing Dorian’s hands to set about removing the heavy plate armour he still wore. The halt in Dorian’s momentum was enough to make him stand back briefly and assess, to see how far he’d failed to get, how much more work there was to be done. A day earlier he would have huffed, griped noisily about how _Just because one_ could _move mountains did not necessarily mean one actually, literally_ should, _Inquisitor_ , as she doubtless would have been happily drawing fists from the earth and pounding the remnants of the battlefield into a new quarry or Maker knew what else. Bull would have teased Dorian about his sudden unwillingness to flaunt magic, and managed to make the teasing both salacious and affectionate. The exchange threatened to form itself fully in Dorian’s mind, the ghost of a conversation that would never happen, and he shook himself like a mabari and began to wedge his staff under a boulder to lever it aside.

“Seeker,” Blackwall said, and Dorian lifted his head to see Cassandra swing herself down from a fresh horse, unarmored and bearing heavy satchels that smelled of food and lyrium. Dorian abandoned his staff to grab a potion, but she caught him by the shoulder.

“No lyrium until you’ve eaten. It would not stretch my abilities to force the issue, Dorian.” He grimaced at the implication: that he was in no condition to make her.  Blackwall went silently through the first pack, absently chewing half a loaf of bread before continuing to rummage as Cassandra went on, addressing them both.

“The Inquisitor wished to return with me. It took a good number of us to convince her otherwise. If so many of our number had not just returned from the Kocari Wilds, if more were not arriving still in waves, I doubt Josephine could have managed it. There is much to attend to. Today marked a tremendous day for Thedas. However heavy our hearts, it will be celebrated.”

She wasn’t wrong. Dorian knew it. He hadn’t an ounce of blame or anger to offer the Inquisitor, would never have expected her to be out there with them, still. He wanted to tell Cassandra she had no need to defend their absent leader, but he couldn’t summon the energy. All he could manage was to blink wearily at her as the word ‘celebrated’ pushed into his mind and immediately conjured vivid memories of celebrations; at the Herald’s Rest; in the quarters above it, a low rumble of laughter against his chest and the smell of vitaar. A grey, stubbly smirk.  He squeezed his eyes shut tightly until the only thing he saw were the backs of his eyelids.

“The Chargers?” he asked without thinking, or meaning to, and saw Blackwall skirt a concerned, curious glance at Cassandra’s profile. She looked sad. There was tension around her eyes and the corners of her mouth.

“The company is all here, not a mile south. They have been working, as you have.”

Dorian nodded a little and Cassandra pressed a satchel against his chest. He rifled absently through its contents. He needn't worry about telling Krem, then. That was good.

“Dorian, your hands,” Cassandra was saying, but he waved her off  in favor of pushing some large slices of tawny, dried fruit gracelessly into his mouth. There were heavy biscuits beneath that seemed to be made of the dregs of Skyhold’s morning porridge, and he broke one into manageable chunks and ate them as quickly as he could. They were an ordeal.

Of all the things wrong with his present situation, he would choose the food to complain about. Dorian could hear the accusation in his head, and it wasn’t made in his own voice but one rougher, deeper, and lightly accented with the round vowels and crisp plosives so particular to Qunlat.  He fumbled the water skin from Blackwall and drank to force the biscuit down, and managed to stand still while Cassandra pressed an elfroot poultice into his hands. He rubbed it in absently, feeling the cracks and tears in his skin mend well enough that he might continue on, then held one grimy palm expectantly out toward Cassandra. Her expression tightened, but she didn’t hesitate to set two glowing glass phials in his palm.

People joined in the work as time apparently went by. Dorian didn't feel the hours. Someone scratched out a grid on a piece of parchment, an attempt to keep track of which parts of the field had been searched. Only a handful of people attempted to get Dorian to sleep, or stop, but most saw plainly they could make him do nothing of the kind, and eventually those that seemed game to make the effort were firmly warned off by Cassandra, who knew something of devotion.

The sun had risen and fallen and begun to rise again when the Inquisitor unhorsed, and pushed her way past supplicants and friends to find Dorian, whom she immediately drew into a hug. He winced half-heartedly and returned it with one arm, though he did that in earnest.

“I’m here,” she said into his collar, “I’m sorry.” _I must smell awful,_ Dorian thought.

More ground was cleared as the Inquisitor pushed and pulled the earth with her force magic, where Dorian’s was more suited for setting it on fire or turning it into glass. She sifted as carefully as one could through boulders the size of great horned war nugs. There was little chatter. There was certainly no celebrating, although Dorian suspected a few people had the urge. They would look up at the perfect sky, grey receding toward peach as the sun climbed the morning, breathe for a moment, and then get back to it. Dorian spared the heavens no such regard. The hole in the sky was gone, but the one that had opened beneath him loomed and threatened still to swallow him. As long as he didn’t look down, he might make it.

When he found Bull’s body, Dorian felt himself brace for the impact of so many days’ toiling labor, of the battle before it, of the years preceding; for the fighting, and the loneliness, and the grief to crash over him like a wave and drag him to his knees. Instead he felt numb and untethered, and only stood staring, blankly taking inventory.

Yes, that was the Iron Bull’s harness. Yes, that was the Iron Bull’s hand, fingers unfurled around the haft of- yes, a particularly distinctive dawnstone axe. Yes, those were the Iron Bull’s horns, though one was shorter than it should have been. Dorian knelt beside the body and shouldered rubble away until it was mostly cleared. One more great, cold, grey piece of debris from the battle that had saved the world.

His fingertips skimmed mortal wounds long since bled dry, traced old scars that had already been intimately mapped out and memorized, and skittered gingerly along Bull’s horns, almost fussing at the broken tip like it was something that could be fixed. He went to brush dirt and blood from the planes and lines of the Iron Bull’s face, and out of the grooves of the design on his eyepatch. Dorian meant to do so gently, but his hands shook badly, and he couldn’t seem to make them stop.

Dorian heard a voice, reedy and harsh and unforgivably plaintive, whispering “No, no no,” and then, “my love. My love.”

It would have been terrifically embarrassing, prostrating himself at the qunari’s side and weeping the declaration, under any circumstances other than the present reality, which was that the Iron Bull was dead, and Dorian was truly and utterly bereft.


	2. The Calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Glittering to gloss a hidden hurt."
> 
> In the aftermath of Bull's death, Dorian's coping mechanisms continue to not be the absolute best ever.

No one seemed quite able to talk to Dorian. They tried- even Sera made an attempt, skirting around his library nook, asking about dirty books that might feature more heavily her tastes than Varric’s usual reading audience- and it wasn’t that Dorian didn’t appreciate their efforts, nor did he wish to shut them out, it was only that he couldn’t stir himself to engage. He replied when spoken to, and acknowledged their presence, but everyone he came into contact with quickly seemed unsettled and begged off.

It musn’t have been comfortable for them, Dorian supposed. Speaking into a void.

The days after Bull’s funeral had all smeared together, until a week had passed and the Chargers were gone. Krem hadn’t tried to say anything to Dorian at all: After days of shared, mute glances, the two men had simply stood shoulder to shoulder and watched as the weapon that had come to be Bull’s favorite was set into a dragonbone slab that topped the small sepulcher where the ashes of Bull’s body now rested. Eventually, Dalish tucked her slender hands around Krem’s bicep, and he let himself be guided away after a brief look at Dorian. Dorian had nodded, and Krem’s reply had been nothing more than a miniscule twist of the corner of his mouth. They were both of them wrecked, and Dorian knew in that moment that Krem would have to leave Skyhold, and Dorian himself would have to stay.

They didn’t do more than call the other by name and clasp each other by the forearm when the Chargers left. Each member of the Bull’s inner circle nodded to Dorian, or lifted a hand as they passed. Dalish curled her fingers in a fragile proximity of a wave. He almost felt surprise when it was Skinner who broke rank, such as the Chargers kept it, and planted herself directly before and very near to him.

“Don’t let it eat you alive,” she said, pressing a fingertip over his sternum in a way he could feel sharply even through his robes. She watched him closely as if to make sure the warning, or command, whichever it was, had sunk in, then turned and slipped easily through the milling soldiers until she was walking apace with Rocky and Stitches, closing the only gap in their number Dorian could see.

Then Cassandra left for Val Royeaux, and the Inquisition seemed so much smaller.

The blessing was in the work, which continued unabated, even while the Inquisition's purpose was now being challenged from any who thought they had the clout to do so, or any who didn’t like the idea of a Pentaghast on the Sunburst Throne. There were many, but there were more who abstained from voicing their opinion, and that many half over again that were vocal in their praise for the Inquisition and, by extension, the Lady Seeker who would be Divine. It kept Josephine and Leliana busy, to be sure, and Cullen seemed contented to keep the Inquisition’s forces in disciplined fighting shape, immediate threat to the world or not, and also to hover at their Inquisitor’s shoulder like an especially attentive bodyguard, or disturbingly overgrown puppy. Dorian certainly couldn’t blame him. Everyone else moved in their orbit, and adjusted to a Skyhold that bustled with activity but did not feel as frantic as it recently had.

Tomes and scrolls from their many travels across Thedas had piled up in the last months of the fight, anything not directly pertaining to Corypheus’ defeat set aside for later translation and cataloging. It meant Dorian could now go days at a time engrossed in something that took him completely out of the world, a practice he hadn’t truly indulged in since his years as Alexius’ apprentice. The differences between his former mentor and Helsima were extensive, for all that Alexius has been calm and patient with a young, eager, arrogant Dorian. Helsima’s calm was constant, her patience inexhaustible, and Dorian found himself becoming increasingly comfortable in her presence. She required nothing from him.

“You apologized,” he said abruptly, lifting his face from a text that had been retrieved from a Venatori cache in the Wastes, quill stilling on the page where he jotted his translation down in shorthand. Helsima turned from the shelves to regard him, expectant but placid.

“Earlier,” Dorian clarified, “to Fiona. About the Chantry scrolls.”

"They were last with Seeker Pentaghast, and have not been replaced,” Helsima replied. “Former Grand Enchanter Fiona was inconvenienced.”

“So you said it to be polite,” Dorian prompted, “you didn’t feel actual regret.”

“It was regrettable she was inconvenienced, but no,” Helsima said, “I did not feel sorrow for it.”

Dorian remained still but his mind had begun to spin a bit, and he kept pressure on the quill, its tip digging into the paper beneath, just shy of damaging it.

“Can you remember what sorrow felt like?” he asked.

“No.”

“Can you remember something that made you feel sorrowful?”

She considered his question, parsing it quickly and with no sign of confusion or hesitation. _How her mind must work_ , Dorian thought. _So cleanly_.

“I remember things that caused me distress, though why they did so is unclear to me. I remember people whose actions distressed me. At the time, my response was to be confounded with strife and sadness, but I do not know why.” She held his gaze for a few silent beats and, satisfied he seemed to be done asking her questions, turned back to the shelves.

“...do you remember people that loved you?” The pressure on the quill had increased, and ink bled slowly into the parchment. Dorian didn’t dare move, though, only kept his eyes on Helsima’s face.

“I do,” she replied, blithely returning a heavy volume to its rightful spot.

“Do you remember loving them?”

She turned toward him, eyes downcast. “I remember I was often content to be with them, and that it was difficult to remain in control of my magic when they were gone. I believe they died. It is difficult to remember with clarity.” She looked at him, straightening up, the book she’d been searching for in hand. Dorian didn’t blink.

“Right,” he said, and she accepted the dismissal of the conversation and returned to her task.

Not a moment’s hesitation, not a glimmer of discomfort, or sadness. _Not even recognition, really,_ he thought, _when she could have been talking about a parent or a sibling or a lover._ Helsima’s world was not spotted with landmines that threatened to shatter her focus or resolve. Her calm was not Dorian’s, a thing subdued, the absence of emotion from exhaustion. Hers was pure, total. She could look back at any horror that had befallen her without heartache or shame, and she could conceive of and accept any future without fear.

His gaze stayed trained on the sunburst brand on her forehead as she shifted in and out of torchlight, and he sat that way until the Inquisitor interrupted his thoughts.

“Dorian.” He gave the slightest of starts as his attention snapped to her. She looked fiercely blank, clearly willing a stricken expression from her face.

“The translation is-”

“Walk with me,” she said, voice harder than the stone it echoed off of. Dorian carefully replaced his quill and stood, and the two walked in silence down the tower and through the rotunda, across the foyer of the great hall, out into the garden, and past it. It was quite a lot like being brought before a headmaster, when the Inquisitor took you to the peculiar jut of rampart that was buffeted by wind and parapet to a degree where, despite being under open sky, it was probably the most private place in Skyhold.

She went to brace her hands against the stone wall overlooking Skyhold’s interior courtyards, back to Dorian, and breathed deeply of the cold mountain air that tugged at them from all sides. Something squirmed in Dorian’s stomach, the first real discomfort that had registered since he’d watched Krem pass beyond the fortress’ gates.

Dorian had barely manage to arrange his thought and get to, “If you were wondering-”  when she spun about to face him, and his voice died in his throat. She looked nothing short of furious.

“I was not,” she bit out raggedly, “but you were, weren’t you? What it would be like. If it would _fix_ you.” Dorian’s throat constricted, cutting off his own air so that the spark of pain under his ribs would smother out. It only took a moment. His body was adept at it, now, and stopping himself from feeling was unconscious an act as breathing.

So he didn’t need to collect himself before saying, “I cannot be fixed. What’s broken is… it’s too much, Evelyn.”

The anger rushed out of her, drained from her face until all that was left was horrified dismay.

“But maybe I can still be useful,” he went on. “Maybe I can still be here, aiding you. Would it be so terrible to see? If it was what I wanted?”

Dorian had been repulsed by the Tranquil at first, which seemed to be a typical response. Pity had warred with fear and made him standoffish, if not unkind. They were mages still, he thought, though they had been mutilated, had their lives stolen from them, and all because their teachers were incompetent, their templars bred to be attack dogs rather than stalwarts. Time in the South had changed his view somewhat, but losing Bull had altered his perception entirely. He knew that fully. Apparently the Inquisitor hadn’t until just now.

Her expression crumpled and she struggled not to weep outright, and Dorian felt a powerful ache. He lifted a hand as though to go to her but hesitated, suddenly unsure, and she sobbed and reached out to grip his arm.

“Please don’t go,” she said, and he pulled her tight against him and petted her hair, because her voice hadn’t sounded so small or lost in what felt like years. “Please, not you, not you after everything.”

Dorian settled a hand between her shoulders and rubbed soothingly.

“I won’t go,” he said, leaving unspoken the fact that as Tranquil, he would remain, in some way. As Tranquil, he might be able to stomach walking the halls of the place that had become home for him, and that were now merely antechambers of a great mausoleum.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice muffled somewhat against his robe.

“You needn’t be,” he murmured, hand slipping to her elbow as she drew back to meet his eyes.

“Dorian, I’m _sorry._ He was with me. He was mine to protect. And I didn’t,” she said, voice cracking, fingers beginning to tremble where they curled around his lapels, trying to maintain her grip. “And I’m _so sorry_.”

She blamed herself. Dorian’s stomach clenched and his hands tightened where they held her arms. Of course she did. _Kaffas._

“No,” he whispered, cupping the side of her face, pushing some of her hair back from her forehead, “Evey, you- had to confront Corypheus, no matter the cost. We wanted to be there, we needed to see it through. All of us knew what we were facing, as much as any of us could. You can’t assume the responsibility for our choices. It doesn’t honor them, and more importantly, you’ll go mad.”

An abortive sound that might have been a laugh under different circumstances struggled from the Inquisitor’s throat, and she mirrored Dorian’s gesture, reaching up and taking his face in both her hands. She looked rueful through the tears, and shook her head.

“You can’t hear it,” she murmured to herself, “oh, Dorian. I couldn’t protect him for you, but now I- I _have_ to protect you for him. I can’t fail him twice. Do you think it wouldn’t ruin him, to see you like this? To see you T- like one of them?

“But he won’t,” Dorian said, and stiffened as much at the look of surprise on the Inquisitor’s face as the tone of his own voice. He thought to apologize for the brusqueness, but what did it matter?

“He won’t,” he said more gently, “and I... cannot stand being… here. Eating and breathing and walking through a world he’s gone from. It’s.” His voice abandoned him. _What happened to eloquence?_ he wondered of himself. _Where have you gone?_

She put her arms around his head, fingers pushing into Dorian’s hair, and pulled him down into a tense embrace. He allowed it, bowing his head, the weight of the admission pushing his face into her shoulder, the vastness of the emptiness that filled him up and surrounded him making him cling to her like a lifeline. This couldn’t be their reality, could it? One where Evelyn Trevelyan could save the world but not one qunari, and would carry that perceived failure like a weight around her neck for the rest of her life. One where Dorian Pavus, Altus, descendant of the first Dreamers, chosen and lauded apprentice to Gereon Alexius, legendary pariah of the Minrathous circle, looked at the mark of the Tranquil and felt… wistful?

It was wrong. It was all terribly wrong. He had been wrong, Dorian realized, to want to shy away from the pain. Yes, acknowledging it would make it ravenous and consuming, but hadn’t Madam de Fer made an excellent point about what anger was good for, once? Raging desperation had to bare some resemblance, didn’t it? He withdrew from the Inquisitor, mindless of the damp on his own face- there was no kohl for it to make run- but gently wiping at the tears that still clung to her lashes and wet her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and before she could protest took both her shoulders in hand and squeezed. “ _I’m_ sorry. You’re right, I couldn’t see myself. I swear to you, I won’t pursue it. I swear.”

She nodded, almost faint with relief, and he slipped one arm around her shoulders and started them for the ramparts again. He would send her to Cullen, to be properly consoled and reassured beyond what Dorian himself could presently offer, and then he would collect himself, make himself presentable.

It had been a year since he’d spoken to the man, but there was nothing for it. Gereon Alexius was the only person left in Skyhold who could help him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALMOST DONE WITH THE SAD. Like one more chapter of sad. Then no more sad.


	3. The Idée Fixe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian casts a spell.

_You’re not suggesting we’re similar._

_ How’s that mirror treating you? _

In place of physical self-flagellation, Dorian had begun to tack the silent exchange onto the beginning and end of every conversation he had with Alexius. The man had withered in Skyhold, even with the lax imprisonment gifted him by the Inquisitor’s judgement. Dorian knew it had nothing to do with captivity, or the degradation of being a glorified research assistant to an enemy when once Alexius and his wife had been the most highly regarded thaumatologists in the Imperium, and therefore, by extension, Thedas.

The gnawing, unreconciled guilt over Felix’s death had hollowed Alexius out. Dorian found he could sympathize more fully than he’d been able to at the time of Alexius’ judgement. He had tried to talk to the man then, but his former mentor was too enthralled by Corypheus’ destined victory. Dorian had been furious, knowing anything like victory for Corypheus meant doom for all the world, flabbergasted that Alexius couldn’t seem to acknowledge that.

Now, though he didn’t wish for it, Dorian could fathom the appeal of the world ending, or at least going away.

Their first conversation had gone poorly. Alexius seeped bitterness whenever he looked Dorian’s way and Dorian’s lack of any outwardly emotional response seemed to make Alexius angrier still. It wasn’t until Dorian had stood and made to leave that things had changed, and that was due to the fact that apparently no one had ever bothered to tell Alexius his time spell had _worked_.

“Surely you knew,” Dorian had said, plainly taken aback, and Alexius had looked at him with eyes that burned.

“No.”

“I must have said-”

“ _No_.”

There had been quite a few daunting conversations with paternal figures around that time, and Dorian couldn’t recall the exact words of his talk with Alexius as clearly as he did those he’d shared with his father. He had berated the man, surely, demanded answers, but… no, perhaps they hadn’t talked of the ruined future he and the Inquisitor had forged through. It would make sense that no one else did, either, particularly after Dorian had told the Inquisitor of Alexius’ obsession with the magic, the dangers of it. He had other research to turn his mind to, after all, by the Inquisitor’s orders.

“...It worked. Not the way you intended. Not properly. But it did.”

Dorian had left him, then, to let the idea sit and seep back into Alexius’ mind. Their next conversation several days later went somewhat more smoothly.

If his meetings with Alexius concerned anyone, they were keeping it to themselves. Evelyn asked him once if he was getting the answers he needed. Leliana had stopped him briefly to inform him if he needed new volumes for the library, Josephine was in a mood to be asked. That was the extent of it, and Alexius wouldn’t dare jeopardize his sudden increase in materials to pour over or time without a templar standing by just to spite Dorian. The subject of their discussions remained secret, save with the only other soul Dorian could stomach to tell, and then only because he knew there was no way forward without her expertise.

“The thing is, it has to be either a generator, or a catalyst, but it can’t be both, but it probably has to be a generator logistically, but it’ll be indescribably easier to make it a catalyst, and by easier I mean ‘theoretically slightly less than impossible’ as opposed to ‘theoretically mostly impossible’.” Dagna thumbed her lower lip, gaze distant but eyes bright. “I need to order some books from Josephine.”

“Discreetly, Dagna, please,” Dorian said. The dwarf’s boundless enthusiasm for all things dangerous and arcane was equal parts admirable and terrifying. Of all the residents of Skyhold, Dorian, as a Tevinter mage and Altus to boot, was by far the most suited to taking Dagna’s eagerness to rip the world apart to get to the magic underneath in stride. It had daunted even him, on occasion, but now he was purely grateful.

“Right, sure. Hey, does the Inquisitor know about this?” she asked, although it had taken her so long to come to the question Dorian doubted it would really affect her decision.

“No. This is a personal matter.” The familiar words dropped between them like stones, and even with the way the waterfall echoed through Skyhold’s broken, lower reaches, the undercroft seemed suddenly still and quiet.

“All right,” Dagna said, clearly forcing the words to approximate her usual earnest cheer, “well-”

“You have them,” Dorian said. A little noise crept back into the world. She nodded.

“I wasn’t sure,” she said feelingly, “if you would come for them, or… I didn’t want to bring it up.”

“I understand, thank you. I’d like to see them, if you have no other use for the materials.”

Dagna would always have another use for the materials. They were incredibly valuable.

“No,” she lied instantly, and then, not a lie, “I would never reuse them. They’re whole.”

Dorian nodded, and Dagna went to the bench where several runes glowed and fizzled in carefully crafted vices of her own design. She pushed a few bundles of what were probably priceless, Fade-touched minerals aside and dug around a heavy stone trunk for a moment, before withdrawing with an ornately carved wooden box and returning to Dorian with it, lid opened, contents upraised.

The tooth had been difficult to come by at all, let alone discreetly, but the result was well worth it. She had shorn it carefully in two, not an even divide but into pieces that fit like a puzzle, and were of an appropriate ratio for their respective intended owners. The sharp edges were rounded, just enough to make them safe for wear, with stormheart. It had been worked so smoothly it looked like dark water clinging to the edge of a knife. Near the broadest part of each piece the metalwork branched out into a design that strongly resembled Bull’s favored vitaar, and then capped the shards of tooth, providing a ring through which they could be strung on a cord or chain.

Dorian had no concept of how long he stood taking in the details, Dagna patiently presenting the heavy box. He swallowed in place of clearing his throat and said, “The work is masterful, of course. I… Thank you. I cannot tell you how much I regret he didn’t have a chance to admire it.”

“Would you like to take them?” she asked, gently closing the lid of the box.

He had no use for them, and felt a shadow of apprehension at another physical reminder of what was gone, but found himself nodding all the same, and mutely accepted the box when she offered it to him.

“Stop by in a couple days, I’ll have my head wrapped around this amulet thing.”

A couple days was enough time to visit twice more with Alexius, and discover the disturbing fact that Dorian slept better with a wooden box pressing into his ribs than a bottle of wine infused into his bloodstream.

The more they fell into a familiar rhythm, the faster their pace progressed. Dorian had worked the spell out once before, to draw them back from a tortured future and undo Alexius’ mistakes, but the task before him now required more finesse. He needed it to work. He needed to know it would. It was taxing, but Alexius was driven. Dorian would catch glimpses of the man who had come out of nowhere to save him from himself, and his heart would twinge faintly over all that was lost along with Livia, and Felix’s future. The other hurts he carried were more encompassing, though, so it didn’t distract him overmuch.

The voraciousness with which he and Alexius had pressed the Fade and all the rules of its engagement had, in Dorian’s youth, been both thrilling and grounding. It had given him something to dedicate himself to, challenge himself with, and revisiting those theories reminded him of how close they had come to shattering barriers perhaps best left in place. Livia had always been a balance, never holding Alexius back or even attempting to rein him in, but checking, always checking, preventing with her own magic the catastrophes that could have been.

She was gone, like so many others, and Dorian had no intention of recruiting someone to take her place. There were barriers that needed shattering, but the destruction had to be controlled, and channeled. It was heady, exhausting stuff to pick apart- spellcrafting was no meager feat- but after weeks of discussion and argument and exhaustive research, it was given practical form by Dagna’s gifted hands.

“So,” she began, the closest thing to trepidation Dorian could recall seeing her display, “it’s kind of both an engine and a catalyst, but only when it’s working.”

“Which means?” Dorian prompted, eyebrows skewing up and together.

“Which means when you use it now, it’ll be a catalyst, and if the spell works the way you’ve theorized it should, the amulet will become the focal point of bifurcation for every moment that passes while it’s in use, so since it _could_ have been an engine it _will_ be but because I made it a catalyst it’ll still be that, too.” She pulled an incredibly dull looking gem the color of dead moss out of a pouch on her hip. It hung from a copperish chain and steadfastly refused to wink in the light.

“The upside is, if the spell does work and you do move backward in time, because it could have been either and still worked, if something changes in a way that means I would have made it the other way, it’ll still have worked. Paradox avoided.”

_Dumat’s bones, what are you thinking?_ Dorian pushed the thought down and nodded a little, chest swelling with the dangerous fullness of hope.

“And if it breaks, or we never reach this point? In the… bifurcated timeline.”

“Not a full timeline,” Dagna said, “theoretically it’s just…. the moment, and the fabric of the world will snap itself together around that moment to enclose it in the singular timeline. Or, you know, the fabric of the world will unmake itself, I guess that’s possible.”

“Yes, I misspoke. But if we never-”

“I don’t know,” Dagna said. “There’s no way to know.” They stood silently for the space of a few breaths, before Dorian reached out and lifted the chain from her fingers to wind it around his own.

“Very well. The spell is as sound as I can deem it without performing it, and I trust your immeasurable skill.”

“I don’t know if this can be done, but I hope it can,” she said, voice dropping like she was imparting a secret. “And if it’s going to be anyone but the Inquisitor trying it, I’m glad it’s you.”

Dorian nursed that confidence through the rest of his preparations, held it close in his mind and kindled it with thoughts of the Iron Bull. If he did this, as Dagna and Alexius both believed he could, he would hear Bull’s laugh again, all the myriad variations of it; the slow rumble, almost beneath the threshold of human hearing, reserved for wry amusement in lazy conversations; the raucous booming most heard on tavern nights with the Chargers or after a particularly good exchange with Sera as they traipsed through some unholy mud pit; the quick, warm chuckle that had graced so much of their early verbal sparring, that had made Dorian feel warm under ribs and in the pit of his belly, that he had initially mistaken for ire.

He would give anything to hear that laugh again.

Dorian brought the amulet, a glut of lyrium, and the wooden box that held the split dragon’s tooth to Bull’s room. It remained unoccupied, despite Skyhold’s increasing demand for space, though some of the furnishings were stripped bare or had been repurposed. The writing desk was still there, scarred and tilted on uneven legs, and Dorian set his materials out on it, draped the amulet’s chain around his neck and then, though it was foolish, lifted the half of the dragon tooth that was his and dropped it over his head. He rubbed his fingers over the half that was Bull’s.

It was the middle of the day, and the sounds of activity filtered in through the hole in the room’s roof. Dorian watched the sky past the beams, finding his focus- Alexius’ words, Dagna’s faith, Bull’s laugh, Bull’s scars, Bull’s eye. Not the pile of ashes in a cold stone grave set into the foundation of Skyhold, but the breathing, warm, compassionate man that had given Dorian a future beyond the Inquisition to strive for.

He drank three lyrium potions. The Fade pressed in at him from all sides, reaching to meet the power he kept in check through sheer will. He cast, first drawing glyphs in the air around him and then gathering the rest of the spell in his mind, channeling it through his body. The amulet grew cold against his chest to the point of burning, and his focus sharpened.

The day they had left to do battle with Corypheus, he had lounged tersely on Bull’s bed as the qunari strapped on his harness, secured his brace, dressed himself for battle. At the last moment, and with unnecessary sharpness, Dorian had snapped, “Here, sit.”, and retrieved Bull’s eyepatch from the table next to the bed. The Iron Bull humored him, sitting his bulk on the edge of the mattress, and Dorian had carefully fastened the leather straps around Bull's horn, along the groove of scar tissue that knotted Bull’s brow, and carefully behind this ear. Then he had kissed him fiercely, both hands cradling Bull’s jaw, and Bull’s massive arms had wrapped around Dorian like a shield.

That was the moment. That morning clear in his mind, Dorian pushed his will outward, into the amulet which seemed to roil and churn like the sea, and there was a flash of unbearably bright green light as the glyphs shattered, and then the world was turbulence, and then the world was gone.

Then, Dorian was in Redcliffe. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End part one, yay!

**Author's Note:**

> I swear to God this won't be sad forever. Incredible thanks to my magnificent beta Czarina_Kodora.
> 
> This is my first time publishing a piece of fanfiction since like 8th grade? So it's been, what, 16 years? So feedback is very welcome!
> 
> Edited the title to reflect that these chapters are just part one of a series, because I'm a ridiculous newb.


End file.
